


exit downstage left

by AnotherAverageAuthor



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Gen, but thats actually pretty much it, discussion of suicide, do i care? no, like neil has a sister, some of the stuff here is a lil different to the movie, was this my english lit assignment? yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:40:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22858672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherAverageAuthor/pseuds/AnotherAverageAuthor
Summary: "In the early hours of the morning, on December 12th, 1959, Neil Thomas Perry sat rigid in his father’s office chair in nothing but a pair of slacks and plastic crown of thorns, sweaty hands gently wrapping around the weapon that he had chosen to end his life with."~~~Neil's last thoughts.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	exit downstage left

Neil had never really understood why his father owned a gun.

His parents lived in a fairly nice neighbourhood; the crime rate was low. As far as he knew, it had never even been used. He kept it locked away, polished and loaded, just in case. Once, Neil had walked in on him in the middle of the night staring at it. Not speaking, just holding it, admiring its deadly weight.

Neil knew exactly where he kept the keys. The drawer held a few of his father’s most prized possessions (and a couple of his own, Neil remembered, eyeing the dirty teddy he’d had confiscated when he was twelve), but he only had an interest in the gun.

He’d never dared to touch it before, for fear of what his father might say should he find out, but something told him that no matter what happened that night, he could never be in more trouble than he already was in. Neil could’ve been caught that very second, but it didn’t matter to him anymore.

There wasn’t a lot that mattered to him anymore.

The gun was wrapped in a light cloth and he took hold of it in his left hand, using the right one to close his father’s bedside table as quietly as he could, and shuffled out of the bedroom. He may not have cared about getting yelled at, but what he wanted to do would be a lot easier if he wasn’t going to be interrupted.

Bare feet trudged slowly and heavily down the corridor, eventually passing by Neil’s bedroom. He paused only briefly to grab hold of Puck’s crown that he’d hung on the door handle on his way out. He didn’t need to go back inside, he had everything he needed with him.

Neil had already made up his mind. He wasn’t going to write a note. He didn’t need to. His parents would most likely know exactly what his reasons were, and his friends…

He had been happy the last time they had seen him. He didn’t want to ruin that.

He ran over the plan he’d made that night; after the military school bomb had dropped. Take the gun, go to the study, pull the trigger. Really, he shouldn’t kid himself. The Plan had existed in its most basic form for years, going through a mental redrafting every time Neil was up too late, was yelled at by his father or failed a chemistry test. It was a long, painful cycle that never seemed to end.

Well, until now.

His father’s office was stuffy, but not because it was warm. The air was infused with a suffocating mixture of ash from the dying fire and cigarette smoke from his mother’s smoking habit. She hadn’t cleaned the ashtray, but she had shut the window. That was good, it meant he didn’t have to do it himself. He wouldn’t want the neighbours waking up as well, and having the window closed would make that easier to accomplish. He was leaving his father with a suicidal son; he didn’t need a media frenzy to go along with it.

As Neil quietly closed the door to the study, he tightened his grip on the plastic crown and raised it onto his head. He hadn’t planned on staying in his costume but wearing his pyjamas had just seemed wrong. Even so, he’d taken off Puck’s green turtleneck and his bare chest was suffering for it in the winter night.

He took a seat behind his father’s desk in the plush office chair he’d spent so many hours admiring while being berated for his lack of studi-arity, which wasn’t a word, but Neil felt he could let it go just this once. Now that he was sitting in it, he had to admit, he felt powerful, like he could do anything.

The desk itself was relatively empty. His father was a neat man, but Neil knew that he had a habit of spending hours a week cleaning and organising every shelf and space in that room until it was perfect on the off chance that a guest was to come over. He claimed that he was proud of its sleek decoration, its intellectual character. It was his favourite room in the house.

Maybe that's why the only picture of Neil was lying face-down on the polished wood.

The frame had caught his eye almost instantly because it was the only thing out of line. He placed the cloth-wrapped gun gently on the desk before he reached out to pick up the photo.

It was one of his father’s favourites and Neil had a copy on his own desk at Welton. It had been taken about a year before, out the front of the school. With his mother seated the way she was, all stiff and rigid, his father’s firmly clasped hands and Neil’s Welton tie done so tightly he could still feel where it had choked him, it almost looked like an old family portrait from the 1800s. The ones where no one was ever allowed to smile because the exposure time was too long.

“We pay seventy-five thousand dollars a year to send you to this school,” his father had said, as though it was Neil’s fault. “The least you could do to repay me is stand up straight.” Then had come the inevitable, _it’s what your sister would have wanted._

It infuriated Neil to hear that phrase. He’d almost started doing what his father said just so he didn’t have to hear it. It infuriated him because Alice Perry would not have given a shit whether or not Neil stood up straight.

His father only ever spoke his sister’s name for two reasons. When he was trying to guilt Neil into doing something, and when he was trying to explain why he must go to Harvard. The Smallpox vaccination wasn't going to invent itself, but as much as Neil would have liked to be the one to do it, he knew just how pointless his father’s dream truly was.

He wasn’t cut out for medical school, despite what his father had to say on the matter, and the last thing he wanted was to take up someone else’s dream, someone who was capable, someone who could stop another family going through what his had.

The day they buried Alice’s body was the last time he had seen his mother smile. Neil couldn’t stand the thought of his weakness being the reason another child had to calculate how long it had been since they’d seen their mother smile.

Neil checked the small paper calendar on his father’s desk. Two years, three months and twelve days exactly.

He heard the distant rumble of a car on the street outside and he realised how much time he had wasted just sitting there. Unless he wanted to be caught, he needed to get a move on. Keeping this simple fact in mind, Neil finally reached out to unwrap the gun.

It was a small, handheld revolver. Polished exactly to the standard his father had set for himself. It was loaded, surprisingly, and didn’t come with any sort of safety catch, so Neil made sure that he only handled it when he needed to. Now that it was in his hands, he understood what had made his father admire it so much.

It really did have some kind of strange power to it.

In a weak, last moment of thought, Neil grabbed the closest pen he could find and scrawled down the words that hadn’t left his mind since the curtain call: “And this weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.”

It really was all just a dream.

He’d been happy in that play, that was what his father could never understand. He’d managed to catch a glimpse of who he could have been, but none of it had been real. None of this was real, Mr Keating had said it himself. Todd, Charlie, Knox, his friends all thought they knew who Neil was, but his whole life had felt like one huge play.

His father wanted him to quit? Maybe this was his chance to finally make him proud.

~~~~

In the early hours of the morning, on December 12th, 1959, Neil Thomas Perry sat rigid in his father’s office chair in nothing but a pair of slacks and plastic crown of thorns, sweaty hands gently wrapping around the weapon that he had chosen to end his life with.

The street outside was dim; the lamps had just turned off for the day. On the pavement, a dirty tabby cat made its way in between bins and cars, sniffing for any remnants of food families may have thrown out.

As it passed in front of number four, a bang exploded from the front room. The tabby cat leapt in shock, landing a way back down the street. When the house fell silent again, the cat went about its business, only now continuing down the other end of the street.

Strolling away, the last thing it saw of the house was a light flickering on in the front room and a woman’s screams.


End file.
